


daddy issues

by retorica



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Daddy Kink, Dark Crack, F/M, Hate Sex, Love/Hate, Mind Games, Older Man/Younger Woman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:12:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retorica/pseuds/retorica
Summary: Takes place during 5x21. Let's say Rory didn't steal a yacht. Instead, she did something far more destructive, the consequences of which would follow her long after. Rory/Mitchum. Dark Crack.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I will alienate a good portion of you. But maybe the other half will enjoy.

Rory smiled and nodded her head, not even really paying attention to his words, because she recognized that face and the warmth of approval exuding from it. Every figure of authority in her life had made that face. It meant that Rory Gilmore was _in_.

“And I have to tell you…you don’t got it.”

Her face was still frozen in a smile when the other shoe dropped.

_You don’t got it._

_You don’t got it._

_You don’t got it._

Like a waterfall of failure running down her back. It was bleak and cold and unbearable.

What was happening?

Mitchum had just told her she wasn’t cut out to be a journalist.

And he wasn’t done. He was still talking to her, telling her about “guts” and “drive” and “ambition” like these words still held meaning to her. Maybe they did, but she couldn’t remember why. 

“See, in the real world, it’s not good enough to just do what’s asked of you.”

_The real world._ As if Rory had been living in a fantasy so far and he was the voice of reason. What the _hell_ did this man know about the real world? He probably had people hired to bring him his slippers every morning when he got out of his queen-sized bed. His days of adventurous war-reporting were far behind him. He had grown old and mean and neglectful. She had seen how he ran his newspapers; with a weary spontaneity that betrayed his boredom more than anything else. He hadn’t even _really_ noticed her work.

“I’m not saying you’re not competent…” he trailed off. “You’re smart, you’re terrific at anticipating needs. Actually, you’d make a great assistant.”

Rory felt her body cave even further into the seat. He just couldn’t stop. “ _Oh_.”

In his mouth, the word “assistant” had never sounded crueler. Or more pathetic. Her true calling, according to Mitchum, was standing in someone’s shadow.

“I’m sorry. It’s not my pleasure to disappoint someone like you.”

She realized he was expecting her to chime in at one point. Her continual silence was making him uncomfortable.

_Good._

Still, he was waiting. And she had no idea what she was supposed to say. She had been judged and deemed unfit. She _could_   bring up the fact that she, an intern, was being compared to actual reporters when she had no idea _where_  she stood at Stamford Eagle Gazette.  She could also bring up the fact that she had pitched in with ideas at other meetings where he hadn’t been present to see. But all of that would just further confirm that she cared about his words.

She inhaled deeply, sucking in all the unshed tears until she only tasted salt. And then she asked half-bitterly, half in earnest,

“What _is_ your pleasure?”

“Excuse me?” he drawled, cocking his head to the side.

“You just said you don’t find pleasure in disappointing me. But it seems like you are enjoying taking me down a notch.” She was aware that her cheeks were very warm and probably very red and that she looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown. Well, maybe that was true.

Mitchum pulled himself back, rubbing the tip of his chin as if he was trying to get rid of an inch.

“I think you’re taking this the wrong way, Rory. My intention was never to disparage you –”

“Funny how intention and execution are two very different things,” she quipped, eyes sparkling with a fury she felt almost vindicated in.

“I don’t quite take your meaning,” he replied gruffly.

“You don’t? Here it is. You offered me this internship not as an apology for your family’s behavior, but as _punishment_   for even putting your family in that position. So at least have the courage to admit you _do_ take pleasure in all of this.”

His shrewd eyes had narrowed to slits and there was no affable smile on his lips anymore. The easy humor was gone, replaced instead with a savage gravity. 

“All right, Ms. Gilmore. I do. I _like_ letting my subordinates know when they’ve done wrong.”

She exhaled, not with relief, but with the knowledge that he was just as bad as she had thought.

“Don’t worry, I’m no longer your subordinate.”

And she rose and picked up her bag and papers, cradling them in her arms like precious artifacts.

Mitchum seemed slightly put off with her abrupt departure. He was probably disappointed he couldn’t rail at her further.

“One day, you’ll realize I did you a big favor,” he muttered, right before she closed the door shut.

 

 

_…you’ll realize I did you a big favor._

Rory laughed out loud, feeling the warm summer breeze against her arms like an oppressive second skin. She wanted to get rid of her clothes and have her hair cut and maybe even dye it a different color. Just to forget about the person she had been inside that room with him.

She walked aimlessly towards the dock, skipping a step here and there, not because she was giddy, but because she was so angry and so riled up that she couldn’t find any other way to vent.

She stopped in front of the elegant boat inscribed with a golden H and looked up to see Logan and Honor and a bunch of their friends chatting happily. The engagement party was well underway. She could go up there and try to make small talk and smile like she wasn’t seething inside. But she’d just be a downer and ruin the whole mood, because there was no way her current state would go unnoticed.

So she turned on her heels and walked away, feeling like the stupidest person in the world.

No, the truth was, she was smart and competent. Like Mitchum had said. That’s why she needed to go back to the source.

 

 

She found him in the parking lot. His chauffer had driven him here for Honor’s engagement. Of course. He was her father; he was bound to make an appearance, even if it was a cursory one.

Rory stopped dead in her tracks. She had expected a different scenario. Getting into a cab, arriving at the newspaper, marching up the stairs, throwing open the door to his office…

But he was here, getting out of his limo, buttoning his thousand-dollar suit.

The soft cadence of the boats in the water and the music drifting up from the Huntzberger yacht were the only sounds around them.

“Rory.”

His face was undecided, torn between a smile and a frown. “Are you joining us for Honor’s engagement party?”

His question, so formal, so distinguished, made her blood boil.

“No, I think I’m skipping this one,” she said, folding her arms across her body. She had planned to storm into his office and tell him he had _no_ say on who she was and what she was supposed to do with her life. But here she was, not actually saying anything.

“I hope you are not indisposed because of our meeting earlier,” he said, opening his palms in a gesture of peace.

_Peace_. She knew better. Rory forced herself to look him in the eye. Calmly.

“You could have just told me, point blank, that you didn’t want me for Logan. You didn’t have to talk down to me.”

“Why don’t you come up on the boat and have a drink and something to eat? And we’ll sort this out when you’re feeling better.”

“ _No_ ,” she interjected, shaking her head. “I don’t need a drink. And we’ll sort this out here and now.”

There was a strange glint in Mitchum’s eye, something she had not seen there before; an inkling of a ruthless hunger that did not make room for manners or congeniality. He was a shark. She clenched her jaw. She was ready for whatever he had to throw at her.

He opened his arm to her rather forcefully. “Let’s get in the limo. I’d rather we did this in private.”

 

 

Looking back on it - if she had said no, and turned around and walked away, all of this might’ve never happened.

 

 

They didn’t talk once they were both seated inside the spacious car. Instead, Rory looked at her feet and Mitchum ordered his driver to take them to one of his apartments in town.

Rory didn’t question it or argue against it, because at this point, she had hit the lowest part of her day, and she was feeling comfortably numb. She clasped her hands together and squeezed the fingers, wondering why it was so hard being young. Surely she was supposed to feel at the top of her game.

Mitchum was regarding her with deceptive ease. He had unbuttoned his coat.

“You put too much stock in people’s opinions, you know that, Rory?”

She turned her head towards the tinted windows. “Please stop talking.”

 

 

He did. He really did. In fact, all the way up to his condo they stayed silent and a comfortable five feet apart.

Only when she walked through the doors and into the lavish hallway and saw the heap of priceless modern art hanging on the wall like dead prey, did she realize maybe this was a mistake.

And it seemed that Mitchum was still giving her a way out. He walked inside the apartment without looking back. Rory could leave, if she wanted to.

Or she could stay.

Mitchum was making them drinks when she stepped into the kitchen-cum-living area. She felt like she was visiting her grandparents, except she had never felt thirstier in her life.

She grabbed the iced tumbler from his fingers and gulped the whiskey down with a fury.

“Easy. That sort of stuff needs to be savored.”

Rory wrinkled her nose. “No, thanks.”

She dropped her bag on one of the settees and wriggled out of her coat. He took it from her hands as if it were an offering and deposited it on the corner of the sofa.

She hugged her bare arms. She had changed into a short summer dress for the engagement party. She felt his steady gaze on her bare shoulders.

“So. Let’s talk,” he said, raising the glass to his lips. The words were a solid door, shutting out the past hour, the past day, the past year.

 He had no desire to talk, and neither did she.

He set his glass down and took a step forward. She met him halfway.

What was it Lindsay’s mom had said when she’d discovered her affair with Dean? Once you sleep with _one_ married man, you’ll sleep with all of them.

He was bigger than any boy she had been with, mostly because he was man, and twice her age at that. His constitution dwarfed her as he grabbed the side of her jaw and put his hand around her waist. Rory gripped the lapels of his coat.

His mouth descended on hers with the same calculated precision with which he assumed control over his peers. But Rory didn’t want to feel the same subservient pressure in his presence. She kicked off her shoes and put her hands around his thick neck, attacking his mouth with the same need for dominance. This was the man who had dared to play with her dreams. Fuck him.

I suppose…really fuck him.

She thought about Paris and her senior professor and how disgusted she had been at the thought of her friend in that geezer’s arms. Albeit, Mitchum was not as old as that, but he could have been her father. But she was putting a blank on that. She was too far gone. Maybe she had got this reckless streak from her mother.

His hands gripped her thighs and squeezed her ass in a way that felt demeaning and terrible and incredibly hot. He picked her up and held her legs while she locked her ankles around his waist. She clawed at his shirt, trying to get the buttons off while also keeping her mouth on his. She was slightly off-balance, mostly because she had never done this before, but Mitchum didn’t seem to mind that she was clumsily sucking on his neck. He already had a good chunk of her auburn curls in his fist and he was doing something really interesting to her collarbone.

She didn’t even notice that he was carrying her to the bedroom because frankly, a bed seemed like an insult to her. It seemed to officiate this bizarre transaction, and she absolutely did _not_ want to acknowledge what was happening. But it was happening, because his fingers pulled down her underwear seamlessly while he dropped her on the bed.

Even then, maybe she could have stopped it. She could have snapped out of it and demanded her panties back and then left his apartment on foot - a walk of lucid shame back to her campus.

But she didn’t. She realized she wanted him inside her so much; she wanted to have that false sense of power over him. So she pulled the dress over her head and threw it in a corner.

Mitchum looked down at her, half-undressed himself, his eyes hooded with desire. The thick golden hair on his chest did not disgust her enough to want to push him away. In fact, she wanted to feel it against her bare skin. He seemed to have read her mind. He practically ripped the remaining bra from her body, leaving her stark naked.  

Rory squirmed under his gaze. She was so wet she wanted to scream. She hated him for making her wait, for drinking her up like this, so shamelessly.

And then one of his hands landed on her stomach and skimmed the sensitive skin there, making her insides flip. He put pressure on her pelvis, until she couldn’t move.

“What are you doing?”

He knelt by the side of the bed and with his other hand, pulled her thighs closer to him, until he was positioned between her legs.

“Mitchum."

“I’ve wanted to do this since you walked into my house that night with my son.”

Rory made a sound that sounded like an animal in pain. The words broke through her memory and reason and the only thing she knew was that _she_ had wanted this too, on some primal level. She remembered that dismal evening, being dragged out by Logan from the foyer and staring up at the impressive murals on the ceiling and then seeing _him_ , the pater familias, walking through those double doors, sizing her up with one look.  

When his tongue trailed hot kisses down her mound, she let her head fall back in the pillow and put a hand over her mouth.

He licked and sucked on her clit with the tireless dexterity he applied to everything he did, except in her case, he seemed to really enjoy  doing it. He wasn’t the affable and extremely _bored_ executive she had walked behind every day for a month.

The moans came unbidden to her mouth. He was better than the proverbial shower head, because he knew you had to be fast and constant and never once let your partner catch their breath. His hand on her stomach prevented her body from being distracted, kept her still, and heightened the pleasure to an unbearable pitch. She wanted to jump out of her body, but his weight anchored her down.

He bit and nipped and sucked on her cunt until she broke into a long stream of _Gods_.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my G-… _Mitchum_!”

If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up. The waves crashed over her in a way that felt stark new. She had been eaten and emptied and used.

When he looked up at her, half of his face was coated in her. Rory groaned.

“Knew you’d taste like peaches,” he intoned, rubbing his thumb against her clit, making her twitch all over.

The sex that followed was inconsequential, although it made her soar and crash in the same cruel rhythm as before. But nothing could match the way he had torn through her with his mouth.

She had her legs wrapped around him while he drove into her with the energy of a small army, and she wished she could feel his dick inside her but also his tongue, because his tongue had been _perfect_. After all, he was a newsman. And a newsman’s weapon was his word. She loved the way he fought for control, though. He spread her until she didn’t think there was more room to accommodate him, and still he wanted to sink himself deeper, because for all intents and purposes, that was the best place to be.

They exhausted themselves by riding each other like oblivious animals, although they both reserved enough animosity in the back of their mind to make the sex feel personal. A heady and all-consuming attack. The blows of enemies who wanted to annihilate each other. When he took her from behind, he pulled on her hair and told her to look at him.

“Those baby blue eyes, let me see them. Look at me. Look at me fucking you.”

Rory nearly came from his words alone, but she obliged him and kept her eyes locked on him while he fucked the last breath out of her. He seemed to derive infinite pleasure from the innocent shade of blue in her eyes and the way her hips contrasted with that innocence.

“ _Aaaah_ ,” she mewled, as the orgasm robbed her of coherent thought. He followed her shortly, coming hard and letting his head fall between her shoulder blades while he spilled on the sheets.

They both collapsed haphazardly on the bed. He was breathing like a bull. Strands of hair were stuck to her face. Drenched in sweat. Smelling of whiskey and cum.

She looked up at the ceiling.

“You were right, by the way,” he said, as his knuckles grazed the length of her exposed calf.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” she mumbled wearily.

He chuckled. “When you said I didn’t want you for Logan. I didn’t. I wanted you for myself.”

Rory felt a cold frisson run down the skin he had recently kissed and bitten.

“Is that…is that why you offered me the internship?”

“In a way. It was more complicated than that. I just knew I had to see you more often.”

Rory swallowed thickly. “You could have seen me more often if you had invited Logan and me over.”

He laughed darkly. “No. Not in that capacity. When you’re at my son’s side, I despise you.”

Rory raised herself on her elbows.

“You despise me,” she echoed stupidly.

But Mitchum’s gaze was level and honest. He hid nothing. “I’m much worse than you think. Either you’re mine, or you don’t exist.”

She blinked at him. “You’re – you’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

She shivered with cold and fear. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid she might never forget this moment. Years from now, she would come back to it and consider it the source of her downfall.

Mitchum pulled her to him, one possessive hand splayed over her waist, while she rested her head on his chest.

“Let’s rest for now. We’ll discuss details in the morning.”

_Details._

Ever the business-man.

And, though she didn’t think it possible, she fell asleep huddled next to him.

 

 

She woke up to the sound of her phone. She could hear it from afar. It was ringing from the other room.  She meant to get up and answer, but she felt a sudden but unmistakable lethargy in her muscles and a soreness between her legs. Her head was pounding and her mouth tasted like acid. She raised herself slowly. There was discreet sunlit coming through a few slits in the Venetian blinds. Her body smelled of him. At first she couldn’t identify the “him” in question, but it all came crashing down when she saw her panties and dress in the corner of the room.

She had slept with Mitchum. She had slept with Logan’s dad. Multiple times in the course of one night.

She had never been one for potty mouths, but she released a slow and desperate “fuck” as she surveyed the lavish bedroom. She had ruined everything. You couldn’t come back from this. If she had screwed around with one of Logan’s friends, he might have forgiven her at some later point in the future. He knew she’d had a rough year. But she had slept with the man that defined his existence. The man who told him what to do. Who had his future in the palm of his hand.

She couldn’t have sunk lower than that.

Oddly, she was more miserable at the thought her _mother's_ reaction. If Lorelai ever found out what she had done, she would disown her, emotionally and otherwise. It was bad enough she had slept with Dean. It had taken her mom some time to accept it, but _this_ she would never accept. Hell, Rory herself wasn’t sure she could accept it.

Ever since the “Dean incident”, she had come to think there was a dark and unchecked side to her, a deviant appetite that contradicted the wonderful, level-headed girl she’d always been. A remnant of her mother’s wild years, Christopher’s debauchery and her grandparents’ cold blood. Maybe the Huntzbergers had been right to reject her.

But she couldn’t deny the sex had been good. Awful and good. At least, if she died tomorrow, she could say she had experienced sex in the most profane way possible.

“I see you’re up.”

Rory blinked. He walked in dressed in a fresh suit, hair combed back perfectly, an indulgent smile on his lips. As if he had stumbled into someone else’s bedroom. As if this had nothing to do with him.

“There’s breakfast in the kitchen and fresh orange juice. Help yourself to the entire place. You could also launder your clothes if you like. Just tell the housemaid what you need.”

Rory licked her chapped lips. “I have classes later.”

“A car will drive you back to campus,” he said, checking his watch. “Just give me a call and I’ll send my driver over.”

Rory felt sick to her stomach. He was taking things in stride. Like she wasn’t even lying naked under his sheets.

But then he walked around to her side of the bed and leaned forward, placing a warm kiss on her cheek. He smelled of expensive aftershave. Of course.

“I’d like to have you again right now, but I’m afraid I’m running late.”

 His voice betrayed no wanton desire, but that only made the suggestion more painful to resist. She clutched the sheets between her fingers.

“I wasn’t just throwing words around, you know,” he said as he readjusted his tie.

“Words?” she echoed, still not sure she had properly woken up.  This entire conversation felt like a dream.

“About you making a terrific assistant. I’d like you to consider that option.”

“Why would I consider it?” she retorted, feeling the old animosity returning. He had punished her for no good reason. He had humiliated her just so he could get inside her. 

“Because I’m offering. I want you to be my assistant.”

_Either you’re mine, or you don’t exist._

 “You don’t have to give me an answer right now. Take a few days to ponder. And then call me.”

And like that, he was gone. She heard the apartment door close shut behind him.

She was still naked, in his bed. And the world was somehow the same.

 

 

She ate every single thing on that breakfast tray. Let it not be said she wasn’t her mother’s daughter. She left the orange juice intact.

What she needed now was the strongest coffee in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your kudos and comments! Enjoy!

 

The campus looked so different as she stepped out of Mitchum's car. It looked smaller; its sheen and brilliance reduced to the flatness of college life. Everything was two-dimensional, almost transparent. Whatever had she hoped to learn here?

Rory did not recognize the voice inside her head; where was this disaffected attitude coming from? She loved Yale and all it had to offer. Did one night of barbaric sex render it obsolete? 

It was silly, but she felt newly ravished, as if she had given him her virginity. As if, before last night, her body had been untouched and unwanted. 

She downed the last dregs of her bitter coffee and took out the key to unlock her dorm room. Luckily, Paris was already at the school paper (she had left aggressive post-its on the bulletin board to let her know) and she had the place to herself.

She dropped dead on her bed. She wasn't tired or ill, she was just overwhelmed. Her heart was racing a mile a minute. She had to take a shower and peel off his skin and his smell, and then she had to find her books, and revise one last chapter before class. Next week, exams were due. She would have to schedule an intense library-reading session on Thursday and find her study-tree. She also had to clock out of _The Yale Daily News_ for the summer. It was all too much. These mundane and sensible little actions that had been the focus of her life so far, they were so painful now.

Her phone rang. The sound echoed damningly in her ears. 

It was Logan. Rory bit down on her thumb, feeling her anxiety like a hard little ball in the pit of her stomach, ready to explode. 

"Hey."

"Where the hell have you been, Ace? I called you at least twenty times last night. And again this morning." 

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Honor's party, I hope she wasn't upset -"

"Forget my sister, I was  _worried_  about you. I thought something had happened to you." 

Rory gave a brittle laugh. "Nothing happened. I was just extremely tired. It was a particularly tough day at the Stamford Eagle Gazette."

"And you couldn't answer my call to tell me that?"

"I wanted to, but then I would've had to explain, and you were at the party, and I didn't want to spoil it for you."

She could hear Logan's weary sigh on the other line. "Next time,  _tell_   me. Honestly, the party was spoiled anyway because I had no clue where you were." 

"I was here, at Yale," she replied promptly, nibbling on her thumb.

"Uh, really? Because Paris told me a different story. She said she hadn't seen you all evening."

Rory pinched the bridge of her nose. "You called Paris?"

"What was I supposed to do? You weren't answering! Ace, is everything okay?"

Rory inhaled deeply. The truth, and all its ghastly corporeality, was so close at hand, she could almost taste it. She decided to go with her gut. "Your father...offered me a job."

"What?"

"He asked me to be his assistant. It kind of overwhelmed me. I had to take the night to think about it." 

There was a pause on the other line.  A long pause.

"Rory, what did he tell you?"

"He just said, he noticed I was a good worker. And that I would make an excellent assistant. Namely his assistant," she croaked, wondering if she might soon start crying.  

"I'm sure you would, Ace, but Dad doesn't offer people things unless he wants something in return. This doesn't sound good. You know he treats his assistants like slaves, right?"

"He can't be worse than Miranda Priestly," she quipped, feeling tears at the corner of her eyes.

"I've got a feeling this is about me. He's trying to send me a message," he mumbled, and his voice took on a nervous edge. Logan was always a little afraid of his father. It made her heart go out to him. 

"He'll force you to take the job, treat you like dirt, and then you'll feel so miserable that you won't want anything to do with the Huntzbergers," Logan continued, a shade angrier. "This has the workings of my grandfather all over it. He must've given him the idea." 

Rory wished he'd stop talking, wished he'd stop seeing her as the guileless victim. She remembered locking her legs around Mitchum’s waist and she shuddered. 

"Let's not talk about it anymore. I don't even know if I'm saying yes."

"Of course you're saying yes," he grumbled. "Hell, _I'd_ say yes. He knows what he's doing. An opportunity like this? To work closely with a media mogul like him? It doesn’t come often. You'd have your credentials set. You could work at any paper in the country after that. The bastard knows  _exactly_   what he's doing."

Rory swallowed thickly. "Any paper, huh?"

"I hate him for putting you in this position. I'll go talk to him -"

"No! Please, don't do that." 

"He's got to know I won't stand for him treating you like -"

" _Logan_. Look, if I'm going to do this, I need to fend for myself. Otherwise - otherwise, he'll just walk all over me." Images from last night came unbidden in her head. How he'd pulled her hair while fucking her mercilessly. How he'd had his head between her legs. 

"I can't talk anymore right now, I've got a lot of classes and exams to prepare for."

"Fine. I'll pick you up tonight and we can have a quiet dinner," he conceded.  Rory wondered how she'd be able to stomach that. Seeing him now was not an option. But if she didn't, he might ask further questions. 

She tried to sound enthusiastic. "Dinner it is."

 

 

A short time later, standing under the unbearably hot shower, she realized that while her insides were churning with guilt, Mitchum was conducting his business as usual. He hadn't seemed  _at all_  perturbed by the notion that he had slept with his son's girlfriend, that he had betrayed his trust in such a heinous manner. Rory had been reckless and foolish, but Mitchum had been downright cruel. What kind of man would blithely crush his son's heart like that? 

The kind of man she had blithely slept with. 

 

 

Her mother called after classes. Rory mentally prepared herself for another grilling session that would set her teeth on edge. Logan had been bearable. This would be torture. Normally, any call from Lorelai was a foray into her happy place. No problem, no matter how big, couldn't be sorted out by her mother. 

Mitchum Huntzberger was a rude and ugly exception. 

She kept thinking how destroyed her mom would be if she ever found out.  Rory pictured a black hole in the family tree under her name. She'd be the Sirius Black of the Gilmores. No, far worse than that.

"Hey, I was just going to call -"

"I proposed to Luke."

" _What_?"

For a moment, she was tempted to ask "which Luke", because her mind was completely scrambled by the information. 

"I proposed to Luke. I asked him to marry me."

"Oh my God! What did he say?" Rory asked, feeling both relieved and disoriented with the abrupt shift in tone. Here she was moping about her infidelity, and her mother was talking about _marriage_.

In the back of her mind, she was happy for her, but she also knew that the good news wouldn’t diminish the ball of anxiety in her stomach.

"At first he didn't say anything. He was so shocked, you'd think I'd asked him to join a polka dancing class." 

"Sure, because polka dancing is on a par with marriage," she replied, ducking into a hallway, struggling to balance her books under her chin.

She was both impressed and disgusted at how easily she could banter with her mother when inside she was crumbling. 

"Exactly. But you know, once the longest silence in the world passed, he said yes!"

"Oh my God, he said yes!" Rory echoed. 

"He said yes! And we even talked about where we'd live."

"No."

"Yes! He's willing to move in with us if we expand the upstairs bedroom a little bit. I'm telling you kid, it’s all happening so fast."

"Aww, that's a big step. You never share your bedroom, you even kicked me out once," Rory quipped, thinking fondly of her mother and Luke living together in their old house, and an adult version of herself coming to visit them after a grueling season in the Middle East reporting for Al Jazeera, and -

_You'd have your credentials set._

Her throat dried up. He could make that fantasy happen. All she had to do was take him up on his offer.

"Still there, hon?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening," Rory mumbled. 

"So what do you think? I mainly called to ask for your permission, seeing as, you know, you're my unofficial Mormon spouse." 

"Gross," Rory rolled her eyes. "And I think it's great. Amazing, actually. It was about time."

"A-ha...you sound a bit spooked, though," Lorelai remarked. 

"No, I'm just tired from the internship hours."

"Right, how's that going? Are you Faye Dunaway-ing everyone on your floor? Is Mitchum super-impressed with his future daughter-in-law?"

Rory squeezed his eyes shut. "I don't think so." 

"Hey, are you okay? I know I sprang some really festive news on you, but if anything's wrong, you know you can tell -"

"Everything's fine, it's just that I have exams coming up and well, I have to think of a good summer job, and I also have to find a place to live for next year, because they don't accommodate third years anymore."

"Okay, I hear ya, but you’ve still got time to sort that out. How about you come home this weekend and we can relax and watch Kirk Douglas be a terrible journalist in  _Ace In The Hole_  to give you some perspective?"

Rory felt such yearning all of a sudden for Stars Hollow, Al's oily fries and Weston's fattening cherry pies and her mother’s Kirk Douglas impersonations, she wanted nothing more than to drop everything and go home. She would sink into her mother's arms and tell her everything that had happened while weeping a thousand "I'm sorry’s”.

She winced at her own naivety.

 "Sounds tempting, but I'm sure you and Luke want to celebrate your to-be-wed status and the whole town will probably be talking about it and it's gonna be crazy."

Her mother sighed happily. "Can't argue there. Miss Patty has already started a Congo line in the town square.”

"Take pictures for me. And Mom?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"I'm so happy for you."

 

 

But happiness had a funny way of co-existing with guilt and misery. Rory was glad that at least her mother’s life was going in the right direction. She also knew she couldn’t make it through one more dinner with Logan. She’d either spill her guts or have an ugly public breakdown.

She didn’t want to break his heart, because broken it would be, irrevocably. 

She called Mitchum late in the afternoon.

“Well, I must say, I wasn’t expecting such an early call, but I am pleased –”

Rory felt her skin prickle. “If I say yes, can you make sure we leave Connecticut for the summer? And I mean right away?”

She could practically hear his grin on the other line.

“Goodness, Rory. This is unexpected. But yes, I can have my jet prepared in a week. In any case, I was thinking of dropping into South Asia. I’ve got a publishing house that requires my support -”

“Then I say yes.”

“…just like that?” He was gloating.

She kept her voice even. “South Asia sounds fun.”

 

 

Logan watched her like a hawk. If Rory picked up her glass of water, he stared at her shaking fingers. If she turned her head away to glance at the waiters, his gaze lingered on the throbbing vein in her throat.  She knew she was a wreck. She just wished he’d stop looking so worried. She didn’t deserve his concern.

“I told your dad yes.”

“I figured,” he sighed, stabbing at his steak with vigor. “You’d have to be the Dalai Lama to say no to him, and I’m sure he’s twisted that guy’s arm too.”

“That’s funny…” she trailed off. “He’s thinking of South Asia for the summer.”

Logan chuckled. “You know, we talked about seeing Asia together at one point. Bastard really knows how to get to me. But hey, as the old love songs go, this will just make us stronger.”

Rory wished she could agree. Instead, she stared at her plate.

“I mean,” Logan continued, reaching out to take her hand, “I can drop by _unexpectedly_ on you two and whisk you away from Il Duce.”

Rory contemplated such a scene in horror. Logan walking in on them in some hotel room…

She pressed her napkin to her lips.

“Ace?”

His phone started ringing. She exhaled in relief.

“…Hello, Father,” Logan answered wearily. “Yes, I’m having dinner with my girlfriend, thank you. No, I already talked – I held a whole video conference with them! Unbelievable, you want me to – seriously, I think London can wait!”

Rory watched him fight with Mitchum, watched his handsome face scrunch up in reluctant obedience. Because as much as Logan resented his father, he respected him too much to stray from his wishes. Escapades and parties were only minor rebellions. Logan was very careful never to go too far. So when Mitchum delivered the final word, he slammed down his cellphone and pulled the napkin from his collar. He had to go back to work. Even though he still had one year of college left, his father was prepping him for his glorious future in London. A future which Rory had always questioned and lamented.

 Until now.

“If only they gave out awards for biggest jerks on the planet… he knew I was having dinner with you,” Logan grumbled, fishing out some bills from his wallet.

“You should stay and enjoy the rest of your oysters. I know you hate leaving a meal unfinished,” he smiled affectionately and kissed her cheek. “Call you tomorrow?”

 

 

When he was gone, she breathed out the gristly bones of guilt which had been stuck in her throat all evening.

She looked down at her phone. A new text.

_Outside. M._

 

 

His car – a different one tonight – was parked opposite the intimate restaurant Logan had taken her to in good faith.

She looked sideways across the street. She checked for blond heads and familiar faces. She felt like a criminal.

The door opened and she entered a black hole.

 

She sat opposite him, just like the previous night. Except she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his imposing constitution. The mere bulk of him was unthinkable. She’d had this man inside her. It awed her. It made her sick.

“I took the liberty of cutting your dinner short. I assumed you’d be indisposed,” he spoke casually, leaning back and surveying her with ease.

She hated his ease. The deceptive image of the "simple, self-made man" that he wore with such gusto. 

“What a gentleman,” she mumbled, wriggling her toes in her shoes. 

“In any case,” he continued, ignoring her comment, “Logan can use the discipline. I don’t imagine you two will be cavorting for much longer.”

Rory eyed him curiously. “And _this_ isn't cavorting."

“You said yes,” he reminded her, his eyes narrowing. “ _This_ means exclusivity.”

“Funny that you require me to be faithful, given that you’re married.”

Mitchum chuckled. “When I am _your_ assistant, then you can question my morality.”

“I don’t question it. I know it doesn’t exist,” she said, matter-of-factly. "I mean, you don't care at all about how your son feels, do you?"

Mitchum raised a critical eyebrow.

“Touching, really. Perhaps you’d like to get out of this car and be on your way.”

Rory glared at him. “You know I can’t do that.”

Mitchum cocked his head in a gesture of pure triumph. “Why not?”

“You really want to hear how much you’ve ruined my life?  _Fine_. I can’t look Logan in the eye anymore, and I don’t think I ever will again, so mission accomplished there. You also made sure I can’t turn to my mother or my grandparents, since they'd pretty much disown me. I can’t talk to Paris, because she’d laugh in my face. Everyone would, in fact. I'm the stupid college girl who opened her legs to the first older guy with a CEO stamp next to his name. My only option is to follow you on some ego-fueled trip to South Asia. Get as far away as possible and try to live with myself.”

She was panting by the end of her little speech.

“I didn’t know you had such anger pent-up in that small frame of yours,” he remarked. “But then again, good things come in small packages.”

“ _Why_ did you do it?” she blurted out.

 “Why did you?” he shot back.

“Because – Because you drove me to your apartment and then offered me a drink and…” she trailed off, feeling all of a sudden incredibly tired with the whole thing. “And you kissed me.”

“We both came at each other, if I recall right.”

“No, there was definitely more momentum on your side.”

Mitchum gave a hearty laugh. “That’s what I like about you, Rory. You’ve got the wit of a viper, but the heart of an innocent.”

“I’m not innocent,” she muttered bitterly.

“No…I suppose you’re not,” he drawled.

 

She didn’t know where the momentum lay now.

She just knew she had lunged for him and he had lunged for her, but their timing was always _excellent_ so you couldn’t tell who was victim or prey.

Perhaps this is what sickened her the most. This delicious exchange of power.

They didn’t bother with preliminaries. The car was spacious enough for rough and unyielding contact.

She unzipped him without consciousness, guided only by a heavy haze of pleasure, while he palmed one of her breasts and brought his tongue down on her nipple. She tilted her head back to give him more access and arched herself into his mouth. She ground her hips against him until his hardness was close to entry. And then she sank down on his cock like it had always belonged inside her. The feeling was not just intoxicating; it was like the first time _every_ time. There was a quality to his old skin that made each penetration feel like a recent violation. She wanted to drown in that feeling of degradation, so hot and musty and wrong. His callused hands gripped her waist under her shirt and made her whole body jolt with possession. He guided her hips against him while he bit and sucked on her nipple. Rory moaned and cried and felt his saliva in her mouth as he pulled away from her breast to kiss her fully on the mouth. Tobacco and coffee and print and fucking. That’s what he tasted like. She rode him until her hips were raw and red, until his own groans filled up the car and made her spiral into an orgasmic daze. With most other orgasms, she lived them as ethereal highs and she didn’t expect them to last. But this one – she was almost in tears – this one had to last and last and _last_.

Rory felt a dreadful freedom in this hunger. The freedom of the lawless. They were fucking in his car, like teenagers, with most of their clothes still on. Except this was a limo and the driver was presumably listening to their ardent copulation through the partition. 

For some reason, this made her come a second time. His hands guided her hips like an orchestra conductor. She wanted _more_. She squeezed his dick and tried to keep him there, deep inside her, just to feel him come undone, to feel him be _less_ than the man he was – but he pulled himself out in time to spurt thick jets on her stomach and breasts.

Rory cried out in ecstasy and disgust. She wanted the semen to be wiped clean from her skin, but she also wanted to taste it.

Mitchum leaned down and licked it off with his tongue. And then he kissed her, and both their mouths were sticky and rusty with salt.

“Jesus Christ,” she mumbled into the kiss.

“Look at me with those baby blues, sweetheart,” he whispered huskily.

She obliged him, because even the act of watching him watch her was infectious.

His thumb and his forefinger grazed her slick cunt, parting her folds.

Rory gripped his shirt, rubbing herself against his fingers.

“Logan said – he said he’d drop by on us unexpectedly,” she mumbled feverishly, not knowing why she’d chosen this moment to bring it up. But perhaps she knew.

Mitchum inserted a finger inside her and she cried out.

“Would you want him to see you like this? Spread out and ready for me?”

Rory shook her head, breathing hard.

Mitchum flicked her clit slowly while still pumping inside her with his finger. He spoke into her ear. “Don’t lie, Rory. You want him to see my seed on your stomach. You want him to see you beg for me.”

“No,” she panted, gripping his wrist and trying to guide his hand.

Mitchum chuckled. “You’re a wonder, you know that? Perversity has eluded you so far. Now you get to taste the full spectrum.”

He fucked her viciously, inserting another finger, keeping the pace at odds, making her scream in frustration.

Rory gripped the side of his face and kissed him hard, biting into his lips, knocking her teeth against his, wanting to hurt him. She tasted blood. And then, right before she came, she whispered _Mitchum_ against his jaw and she heard him let out a deep growl, as she stiffened around his fingers.

 

 

“Taste yourself, baby blue.”

She licked his fingers clean.

She was inside a black hole. 


End file.
